


Pack Up the Sun

by MonstrousRegiment



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have no idea what I'm doing, What Was I Thinking?, and oh yeah there's swearing, i'm not even in this fandom, no really, pg-13 is not a thing that i do, so i don't know what i'm doing, warning: cancer, watched only one episode of this series ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonstrousRegiment/pseuds/MonstrousRegiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m fine, man. You can go.” </p>
<p>Derek <i>should</i> go. Stiles is visibly off balance, drawn into himself, tense and unhappy and tired, so tired. Derek should go and leave him alone to mourn his dead in peace. Stiles isn’t really a part of his pack. He’s not even a werewolf, he’s just a human kid. He is <i>not</i> a part of the pack. Except he kind of is, and Derek—Derek is an alpha. Protecting his people is what he does. And someone should be looking after Stiles, and it looks like he’s the only one around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pack Up the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [herekdales (rstarkk)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=herekdales+%28rstarkk%29).



> HEY DERKASS. 
> 
> I know you lie Teen Wolf and I wanted to do something nice for you so I... wrote Teen Wolf. Or um. Tried. I don't even know what this is, I have used all my knowledge of the series which is what little shows up in my Tumblr dash through Tumblr Savior. But uh, i did my best! It's disconnected to everything because I don;t know anything so it's more like an AU story, I guess? I don't know. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it anyway XD
> 
> Title taken from the Poem Stop All the Clocks because I suck at titles. Not sorry.

“Why do they let you in the grounds again? You graduated, like, five hundred years ago,” Scott glares at him. Childish, much in the manner Scott normally behaves, in Derek’s personal opinion. 

“I’m twenty-three,” Derek says, and glowers, because glowering is a thing that Derek does. “And I’ve been trying to talk to Stilinski all day. Where the hell is he?”

“Not here.”

“Obviously. Is he sick or something?”

“Why do you care?” Scott shrugs, but it’s not a gesture of indifference, but rather one of discomfort because his hostility towards Derek is making his back muscles tense with the need to hunch over and maybe claw the alpha to death. Derek gets the ‘I want to claw you to death’ reaction a lot so he knows the look. 

“I don’t. I need to talk to him about the wards.” 

“It can wait until tomorrow.” 

“It really can’t. Where is he? I thought he was a stellar student, never missing class, all good grades, nerd but for the lack of glasses, sort of thing.” 

“You’re an asshole.”

“I get that a lot. Are you gonna tell me where he is or do I have to go to the police and tell his dad he’s skipping school to be drunk somewhere?” 

Scott gapes incredulously. “He wouldn’t do that!”

“I know that, you know that, but the question is, would his _dad_ believe it?” 

Scott’s eyes flash to amber with anger, but he settles himself with little effort. He’s growing strong, the little pup. Derek might be proud, maybe a little bit. The Force is strong in this one, type of thing. 

“He’s at his house.”

“Now was that so hard? Did I have to drag that out of you?”

“It’s a bad day,” Scott growls. “Just leave him alone.” 

“What, he’s in his period? Is he PMSing, is that it? I know girls like him can be bitches—“

“I’ll show you a bitch—“

“Yeah _thanks_ Erica—“

“His mom’s dead,” Scott says over both of them, and Derek looks at him narrowly. 

“She’s been dead for six years.” 

“Yeah, but today,” Scott says, angry with Derek but quickly losing the battle against an oppressing, heavy sort of sadness. He sighs, shoulders slumps, hands smacking idly against his thighs. “It’s today. You know. So he doesn’t come to school today.” 

Oh. Right. 

“Just leave him alone, alright? Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, quiet. 

“Not today, Derek,” Scott insists. 

“I heard you,” grunts Derek. He’s a little offended because he’s really just not that much of a dick, alright? 

Besides. Derek knows something about loss. 

So the wards really are something he needs to discuss with Stilinski, because they’re doing something odd and he feels like their power might be sort of, fluctuating, a little, and maybe they need to be recharged. However that can be done. Stilinski knows, or he can figure it out, because the kid’s a pain in the ass but he’s smart and he knows where to find information and how to put it together. Derek can admit that. 

And anyway, Derek has other shit to do, groceries to get, laundry to take care of. Not everything in Derek’s life is arguably glamorous running in the woods, making sure Scott doesn’t get himself killed, making sure Jackson doesn’t get other people to maul him—which he deserves—,making sure Stiles doesn’t get this week’s supernatural creature to claw his eyes out—he’s got an uncanny talent for that—and just generally trying to keep his own guts on the right side of his skin. Being an alpha isn’t exactly the best thing that’s ever happened to Derek, not that he’s complaining. His life’s always been a mess anyway, now it’s just a loud mess full of teenagers. 

Teenagers, godamnit, what did Derek do to deserve this. As if teenagers aren’t monstrous enough on their own merit, he gets to have a pack of werewolf teenagers. 

Well—pack. That’s overgenerous. Not a pack, exactly. Not a pack at all, in fact. Just—a bunch of screwed up kids thrown together by shitty circumstances and very bad luck. And Derek’s uncle, obviously, because Peter’s a dick, he’s always been a dick, and coming back from the dead has only made him a creepy undead dick with a penchant for smirking and talking in riddles like he thinks that’s a thing that the undead should do. Asshole.

So yeah, Derek has stuff to do. The wards really can wait until tomorrow. 

He puts Stiles Stilinski and his mourning out of mind and then he goes about his life, and the day goes fine until about eleven in the morning when he’s coming back from the grocery store and goes by the police station. Sheriff Stilinski is there, in full uniform, obviously going about his daily sheriff business. Derek is stunned. The man looks tired, in the same way he almost always looks tired, the only parent of an overachieving, hyperactive teenage boy who’s more trouble than he should be by all rights. Tired, and a little sad, crinkled at the corners like an old paper—but certainly very much functional and very much not in his home mourning his dead wife with his only son. 

So—alright.

Sheriff Stilinksi has always seemed like the sort of pragmatic, calm man who loves his job and loves doing something with his life. It isn’t insane that caught in the grips of loss, he’d turned himself heavily onto his work. It would be great if he’d turned onto his son instead, but hey, Stiles isn’t a psychopath, so the sheriff hasn’t done such a bad job on his own. 

It makes sense, really, that the man is working on a day that holds so much pain for him, and trying to keep his mind off things. Derek can understand that. 

What is nagging at him though—Stiles. 

Scott is at school. Sheriff Stilinski is at the station. 

Derek is aware of some sort of lack of knowledge when it comes to the people in Stiles’ life but he is pretty sure those two were it, and none of them are at home with Stiles, which means the kid is alone in his house. Mourning his dead mother. 

It doesn’t sit well with Derek. 

Not that it’s any of his business. No. At all, in fact. 

He got his groceries inside, uncapped a beer and parked himself out in his back gallery, or what was left of it anyway, looking out into the forest, and enjoyed the quiet for a while. Drinks his beer. 

Stiles is alone in his house with the ghost of a dead woman and Scott is in school and his dad his busy filling forms for better prison food, for all Derek knows, and suddenly—oh. 

Derek is furious. 

Which—alright. That’s sort of Derek’s default, being furious, when he’s not in ‘oh shit’ and ‘I don’t know what the fuck to do’ mode. Lately it’s been a toss-up. 

He drops the empty bottle on the floor, intending to pick it up later, and get inside his car, and by the time his mind catches up to him he’s pulling up on the street in front of the Stilinski household, and now what?

The anger’s drained away with the drive, and what’s left is a weary, insecure sort of uncertainty. Stiles skipped school. Maybe he wants to be alone. 

Only—well. Derek knows a bit about loss, and about dealing with it. He knows about wanting to be alone when you don’t really want to be alone. You don’t want to be alone—you just don’t want anyone around you, hovering puppy-like and worried, over attentive, eager to please. You don’t want someone you have to smile for, someone you have to convince you’re fine, because fuck, you’re not. 

Ultimately, that’s what gets him out of the car. 

Stiles and him aren’t friends. Not really. They tolerate one another, they cooperate when needed. Stiles love Scotts like a brother, and he has that incredible, once-in-a-lifetime-found, heart-deep loyalty for him that Derek had previously believed to come from story books. Stiles would lay his own life down for Scott, not only willingly, but happily. It might not be the same depth of feeling for his other friends, but Stiles still goes to incomprehensible length for all of them and he obviously complains—loudly—he doesn’t hold it against them. He doesn’t hold grudges, or harbor debts. He does what he does because he wants to and he can, and Derek, he respects that. 

But when all is said and done Stiles is just a sixteen year old human kid who gets panic attacks. He’s in too deep, way too deep, and if he had any sort of sense he’d turn his back on Scott and walk away and live a normal life—but Derek knows he won’t, so it’s up to him to keep Stiles in one piece until Scott realizes he’s the one that needs to be protected, and not Allison, who can most certainly look after her own ass. 

And Scott, he loves Stiles dearly, of course. So when Stiles says he wants to be alone for today and just be at home, Scott listens, because Scott will give Stiles whatever Stiles wants so long as it’s in his power. Scott’s not old enough to understand that there’s a difference between what someone needs and what someone wants. 

That’s what gets Derek away from the car, up the driveway and to the front door. He rings the bell, because he knows how to function in a civilized society, he just chooses not to most of the time, and waits. 

And waits. 

Rings again. 

The hairs at the back of his neck start rising. Stiles should be here. He should be here in this goddamn house. Derek sets his jaw and listens. 

That’s definitely Stiles’ heartbeat in the vicinity. Derek titters in the edge of indecision and, at last, because he already made his way here and he’s not pussy enough to turn around, he makes his way around the house to the yard. 

Stiles is sitting in the grass in the middle of the yard, elbows braced on his knees, staring at something in his hands. It’s a silver bracelet of some sort, delicate and feminine. He turns it in his fingers reverently, link over link over link. Derek can hear the sound of the metal stroking skin, like a soft sweet song that mingles with the wind. It’s a grey, cold day, and Stiles is wearing only a shirt, though Derek knows he hates being cold. It’s strange to see him this still, sunk so far into himself. 

Derek considers moving around until he’s in front of him or next to him, thinks about joining him in the grass, offering company silently, drawing Stiles out of the pit he’s dug himself into and—and what? Derek isn’t good at talking, let alone talking about feelings, he’s not good talking about anything really. Talking is a thing that happens to other people, usually around Stiles. 

Derek likes sneaking up on Stiles, since it invariably makes him freak out and flail in cartoonish and somewhat amusing ways, but today is not the day for that, so he glances around and very deliberately steps on pile of dead leaves. 

Stile’s head whips up and around. His face, always so open and expressive, does a strange thing where he goes from absent-minded to surprised, to embarrassed, to annoyed and, finally, manages, against all odds, to pull up a smile for Derek. It’s all wrong and his eyes look flat and black, red-rimmed above dark bags. The rest of his face is waxy and pale. He looks awful. 

“Hey,” he says, and it sounds easy, but Derek sees his hand tighten to a fist and hide the bracelet. “What’s up, sourwolf?” 

Derek has to make a choice. It’s easier than he thought it would be. 

“It’s alright,” he says, quietly. “I’m not your friend. You don’t need to lie to me. You can drop the smile.”

Stiles opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but then, abruptly, shakes his head and lets is shoulders sag in defeat. It tastes like something very bitter in Derek’s mouth, the way the boy dips his head forward and shrugs a shoulder, vague. 

“Do you need something?” he asks, and he sounds exhausted and miserable. 

“No.”

“Did Scott ask you to come around?”

Derek stares at him. “Scott wouldn’t ask me for a favor, Stiles.” 

Stiles exhales a short, humorless laugh. “Nah, I guess not. So, what, I mean, what are you doing here?”

Derek glances at the grey overcast sky. 

“It’s going to rain,” he mutters, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I saw the good sheriff at the station. I came to check on you.” 

“It’s Tuesday,” says Stiles, somewhat vacantly. “He works.” 

“Even today?” 

Stiles shrugs. “Especially today.” 

Well, that really just tells him everything, doesn’t it. 

“I’m fine, man. You can go.” 

Derek _should_ go. Stiles is visibly off balance, drawn into himself, tense and unhappy and tired, so tired. Derek should go and leave him alone to mourn his dead in peace. Stiles isn’t really a part of his pack. He’s not even a werewolf, he’s just a human kid. He is _not_ a part of the pack. Except he kind of is, and Derek—Derek is an alpha. Protecting his people is what he does. And someone should be looking after Stiles, and it looks like he’s the only one around. 

“You mind if I stick around? It’s going to rain.”

“I’m not made of sugar, and I resent the allegation.”

“My roof has holes in it,” Derek retorts, because they’re just no way he’s going into a discussion about pop culture references with Stiles. He’d lose like a rubber duck in a gunfight. 

“Oh, right,” Stiles murmurs. He goes still for a moment, absent-minded, s if he’s forgotten Derek’s even there. It takes him a while to bring himself back to the yard and the day, and finally he nods and shrugs. 

Derek glances around uncomfortably for a moment. There aren’t any chairs in sight. Stiles is sitting in the grass, unmoving. The temperature is dropping quickly and Stiles’s arms are riddled with goosebumps. Derek grits his jaw, considers taking off his jacket and putting it over Stiles’ shoulders. Knows immediately that’s not a good idea. The last thing he needs is his jacket to smell like Stiles, very human, very vulnerable Stiles, when there are about five hundred different creatures that want beef with Derek at any given time and have good sense of smell. It’s not like Stiles isn’t in the line of fire already, but he might as well keep him in the pan rather that shoving him into the fire. 

Finally he sits down, bracing his elbows on his knees like Stiles. Not too close, so that Stiles still has his privacy, but close enough that if the boy glances up, he’ll catch sight of him. It’s a good distance. Alone, but not alone. This works. 

He doesn’t want to stare intensely at the side of Stiles’ head, so he stares at the woods instead and goes over all the things he needs to do, which are many. For one, he has to surgically remove the stick Scott has up his ass and maybe achieve a reasonable, rational discussion with the boy about his options. Pack, no pack. Those are pretty much it. Derek wants a pack—he wants a family and pack is family—but he also wants for innocent kids to not get killed like rabid dogs, and that’s what happens to Omegas. It’s all good that Scott’s got his lone-wolf, teenage-rebel thing going on, but it’s going to get him sliced in half. Derek’s not ready to let that happen to him. Scott has this way of growing on you, like mold. It’s the puppy attitude, probably. 

And then there’s his thing with a hunter’s daughter, which is not even—Derek isn’t even touching that, damn. It’s screwed up, is what it is. Derek is all willing to admit he has a personal problem with the Argents—and who could blame him—but if it were some other random hunter he’d still think that is an insane thing to do. Werewolves and hunters just don’t mix well, unless you’re hoping to get nitroglycerin. 

So yes, Scott is pretty much a mess, and—

“I’m sorry?” he asks, blinking. 

“I said, there’s a spider in your leg.” 

Derek looks down, and flicks the spider off with a finger, unconcerned. He imagines if it had been up Stiles’ leg, a lot of flailing and ridiculous rolling around in the grass would take place. 

“What happened to her?” the words are out of Derek’s mouth before he can think about them, and he’s not sure he regrets them. Stiles looks down at the delicate bracelet in his long fingers. 

“Cancer.”

The silence falls over them again, like a blanket, stifling like fog. 

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Derek says, and it feels painfully honest. “Watching them die or just—showing up and they’re dead. Like a bullet to the head.” 

Stiles is quiet for a long time. 

“Do you miss them?” he murmurs at length. 

Derek stares at the side of his face. He lives in the remains of his old house, ashes and cinders and holes in the roof and rooms with too few walls. The only thing holding Derek together s that house, and the only thing keeping that house standing is Derek. Of course he misses them—desperately, he misses them like he might throw himself off a cliff one day to meet with them again, like elusive whispers in the night as he sleeps that stroke back his hair and murmur love in his ear and vanish, like smoke, when he wakes. 

“I miss her. I mean,” Stiles lifts his head and blinks blankly at the tree-line, and Derek has the uncomfortable feeling that Stiles isn’t really talking to him anymore. “I didn’t. I know I didn’t—it’s not my fault.”

It hits Derek like a spear to the chest. 

“You didn’t give your mom cancer.”

“I know. It’s not. My fault. But I feel, like—I could have, I don’t know. Helped. I could have known, seen it coming.”

Derek gets up and moves closer, crouches down next to Stiles to fist a hand in his thin shit and shake him, because there is something seriously wrong here. He scents the air; Stiles smells like Stiles, human and Adderall and wretchedness and exhaustion, but no foreign substances. So this is just—Stiles, down low, at the bottom of it all. A kid that feels guilty because of something he had nothing to do with. Derek sighs and drops to the grass next to him. 

“You’re not an oncologist, Stiles. You were eleven. Your dad and mom didn’t see it coming.” 

“I just,” Stiles sighs, folds his arms on his knees and hides his face between them. “I hate mother’s day.” 

“Everyone hates mother’s day but moms,” retorted Derek, and watched a fat drop of water soak into Stiles’ shirt. He looked up, blinked with a raindrop fell in his eye. 

“You should get inside.”

No answer. 

“Stiles. Go inside.”

“I’m fine,” snaps Stiles, but his voice sounds thick and it isn’t because it’s muffled by his arms. His shoulders are shaking. 

Derek grits his teeth and lets him be. 

Minutes trickle by like molasses. Derek watches Stiles’ shirt soak up the rain, plaster to the boy’s skin. Through the wet fabric, Derek an see the darker shade of a bruise on Stiles’ shoulder and shoulder-blade, the remnant of one or other of the many times Stiles has gotten the poor end of the deal by running with them. 

Like a night spent in a pool, and _I don’t trust you_. 

Muttering a curse to himself, he gets up and stomps to the house. If Stiles feels him or sees him leaving he doesn’t show it. Derek storms into the house and searches furiously about until he finds something, and then slams the door behind himself and goes back out to the yard. 

Drapes the red hoodie over Stiles’ shaking shoulders and crouches down next to him, rubbing his face angrily. This isn’t right. It isn’t like Stiles to just—just _sit_ there. 

And that’s precisely what he does. Just sits there, under the rain, face hidden in his arms, probably crying, and holding the bracelet. Derek is fucking this up somehow, he just knows it. Or if he’s not, he sure as well isn’t making it any better. Not that he has any clue how to make this any better, because Stiles’ mom is dead and nothing is going to change that, or how horribly Stiles misses and needs her, this boy with ADHD and panic attacks, and how obviously heartbreaking it was to watch her slowly drift away in a hospital cot. 

For once, Derek slowly comes to understand, Stiles is just going to let something run its course, and do nothing to stop it. It figures it had to be about himself. Derek wonders if this is what he does every year this day. Sit here in the yard and let the grief wash over him until he’s too exhausted to do even that. He sure looks like it is. 

Derek an understand that, too. Maybe if he’s too tired to keep his eyes open, Stiles will sleep the rest of the day away, and in the morning when he wakes up again this horrible day will be gone, past, behind him. 

And tomorrow, he’s going back to school and he’s going to joke with Scott and smile at Allison and jokingly bemoan the fact Danny doesn’t want to bend him over a flat surface, and—just generally be obnoxious and loud and bizarre and Stiles. 

Shaking his head, Derek shifts so he is leaning, carefully, over Stiles’ back. The fact the kid doesn’t even react was bad enough. There are a lot of things out there out to get Stiles. He should be on his guard at all times. 

“Let’s get you inside, Stiles,” he says quietly, sliding his arms around Stiles’ middle and carefully standing up, dragging the kid with him. Stiles make a noise of protest, twists and squirms until Derek grabs his arm and—suddenly he’s hugging Stiles. 

That’s—not what he was hoping for. Stiles’ hands are gripping his jacket and he’s shaking. He’s still crying, this time against Derek’s shoulder. Shit. Derek really was hoping this would not happen, but it’s happened, and he’s got an armful of traumatized teenager to deal with, which is about two armfuls more than what he wants. 

Helpless, he rubs his hand against Stiles’ short hair and strokes it back and froth against and with the grain, in what he hopes is a soothing way. Stiles is a disturbingly quiet person when he cries, It’s freaking Derek out, because Stiles is never quiet. 

“Come on, Stiles,” he mutters, and maneuvers the kid all the way into the house and stretches him out on the living room couch. Stiles lies there, eyes heavy-lidded, salty tears sliding sideways down his face to the couch cushion. It’s awful. Derek feels like something is not working inside his chest. He can’t leave him alone like this, but he doesn’t know what to do with him either, so he finds a chair by the window and sits in it and stays. 

The day slides slowly, painfully, into night. Derek gets up and gets a glass of water, leaves on the table in front of Stiles and pretends he’s not checking and noticing the boy doesn’t drink it. At least he’s stopped shaking, so that’s probably a good thing. 

“You can go,” Stiles croaks hours later, throwing an arm over his face. Derek look at him. He looks like roadkill. Going is not a thing that is going to happen until someone else gets here and Derek can leave with the knowledge that this kid isn’t alone in what looks like the worst day of his life, which is disturbing considering it’s been six years of this already. 

“I don’t mind,” he lies, because this is shitty. This is seriously really shitty. And Derek has shit he needs to do. But Stiles is, somehow, a part of his pack, and he’s the alpha, and he’s not going to leave. He started this. He’s going to see it through. 

“Why are you even here, dude?”

Derek considers telling him the honest, direct truth. The consideration lasts about five seconds. By the sixth he’s come to the understanding that telling Stiles that he’s worried and freaked out about his attitude isn’t going to get either of them anywhere. If he does, Stiles is going to smile that fake, dead smile and tell him he’s fine. Derek really can’t put up with that by now. 

“It’s a werewolf… thing,” he settles for in the end, because let no one ever say Derek hale has a problem with lying to hurting, miserable kids. 

“Fine,” exhales Stiles, too tired to argue. That’s a first. 

There is a werewolf tradiotion—thing or whatever, where the alpha stays up all night as vigil for his dead and the pack sleeps around him in more-or-less organized furry piles. But that’s when someone dies, not for the anniversary of a death six years too late. Derek figured, though—he figures he can do this. Mourn with Stiles. Because obviously, for Stiles, this say is like losing his mom all over again. 

Eventually, Stiles’ hitching breath evens out, his heartbeat becomes rhythmic and slow. He falls asleep. Derek’s so deep in this by then he can’t just get up and leave, so he stays there and watches Stiles sleep like he’s suspicious he might stop breathing the moment he glances away. 

It’s a surprisingly distressing thought. 

When the sky begins to darken, Derek raids the fridge, and makes himself a sandwich. Without even stopping to analyze the impulse, he makes another one and leaves it on the table next to the untouched glass of water. There’s probably some way to rationalize that with excuses like Stiles is a growing teenage boy or whatever. Derek can’t bring himself to pretend he’s not worried, because he’s just spent the whole day in this house with a semi catatonic teenage kid he doesn’t even get along with, just because—

Because Stiles missed a lacrosse game he was dying to go to to help him, that’s why. Because he spent two hours holding onto Derek in a pool. Because Stiles is loud and cartoonish and obnoxious and he _cares_. And because he cares, he gets beaten, and hurt, and almost dies, and no one’s doing anything to stop that, or at least no one’s doing _enough_.

He’s trying to swallow that anger down when the door opens and Sheriff Stilinski walks in and stops, and stares. 

“Mr. Hale,” he says, frowing slightly in that middle grown between bewildered and suspicious. Derek makes a small gesture with his head towards the living room, and the sheriff moves past him and stills when he sees his son stretched in the couch, asleep. 

“Well,” he sighs. “That’s earlier than usual.” 

Derek leans his hip against the sink and says nothing. 

The sheriff shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair, and then leans against that same chair, bracing his weight in his arms. 

“You been here long?”

Derek’s knee-jerk reaction is to lie. What comes out of his mouth instead is ‘All afternoon’. Derek wonders if he has a subconscious death wish he’s not aware of. Well, now he’s aware of it. 

The sheriff looks pained. “Thank you, Derek. I don’t like leaving him alone.”

“Why do you?” Derek spits. He’s going to get a bullet to the forehead anytime now, damnit. And then it hits him, suddenly—that Scott stays in school and doesn’t come around because he’s sure Stiles wants to be alone, when Derek can tell from being around that that’s not what Stiles wants at all. 

“Is that—did he tell you to?” He gestures with his hand to the living room. “It’s not what he wants.” 

Derek is standing in the sheriff’s kitchen giving him advice on how to treat his own son. This is going to end in tears, and probably smears of blood on the tiles. Derek stands straight and fixes his shirt uncomfortably. 

“Stick around next year. See what happens.”

He turns and stomps to the door, pulls it open, and is in such a rush to escape quickly that he almost misses the sheriff calling out to him. He turns around like a man about to face his executioner, which he very well might. 

But the sheriff just looks tired and sad and—grateful, Derek thinks. “Thank you. For staying with him.”

Derek and he stare at each other for a long time. 

It feels a little like defeat, a bit like giving in, but Derek says: “I don’t have a lot of friends, sheriff. I take care of the ones I manage to keep around.” 

The sheriff’s mouth pulls up at the corner, almost a smile. 

“I know Stiles can be difficult. So again, thank you.”

Derek gestures vaguely at himself. “Not exactly a walk in park. He hasn’t,” he pauses, thinks about what he’s saying, and finally pushes on to finish the thought. “eaten anything, today. So.”

“I got it from here.”

Derek nods, turns back to the door—

“Hey, hold on, isn’t that yours?”

Derek turns around. The sheriff is pointing to his leather jacket, abandoned on the chair he’d been sitting on all afternoon. Embarrassed and angry for it, Derek stomps back to the living room and snatches it up. 

Stiles has turned on his side and curled up into a little ball, face hidden in a cushion. Derek sighs. 

He shoves over the plate of sandwich and sits on the table, leaning forward. He hesitates only a second before stroking Stiles’ hair, soft along the grain so as to not wake him. He almost wishes his veins would turn black like ink. He wishes he could take all this pain away and spare the kid. Stiles is too young to be this sad. 

“You’ll be fine,” he murmurs, and that could almost be power, that belief. That Stiles will pull through this, sleep off this grief like an anchor and rise to see another day with his usual smile and obnoxious comments and random nerd cultural references that Derek doesn’t even understand half the time. 

He catches a glint of light on metal on the floor, and bends down to find the bracelet on the floorboards. He picks it up and, carefully, threads it through Stiles’ fingers, tangled so it won’t fall off. 

Yeah. Stiles is pack. He’s definitely pack. Or else Derek wouldn’t have this urge to keep him safe and spare him pain. 

Derek is suddenly aware of the sheriff staring at him from the doorway. He clears his throat and twists into his jacket, pulling it harshly so it sits right on him. 

“I’m just gonna. Go.” he grunts, brushing by the sheriff on his way out. The man doesn’t stop him. 

Derek tries to put it out of his mind, but when he goes to sleep that night he can still sort of feel the way Stiles’ shoulders were shaking when he hugged him.


End file.
